Local businesses have always relied on word-of-mouth recommendations to gain new customers and grow their sales. Whether they’re a new restaurant in the neighborhood, a favorite salon, or a trusted tailor, small businesses often depend on social endorsements to get discovered.

And recommendations from friends become even more important when people are on the go. In fact, 150 million people visit Pages on Facebook every day globally. And in the US, over half of visitors to Facebook Pages are visiting them from a mobile device.

Today we're pleased to announce updates to Nearby, accessed via the Facebook mobile app: now, in addition to showing which friends have checked in at a particular place, Nearby helps people discover places near them based on their friends’ recommendations. People can explore by category (ex: restaurants or hotels); connect to businesses directly from their phone (by liking, checking in, calling, or getting directions); rate the places they visit via a five-star system; and share their recommendations with friends.

If you have a Page on Facebook with a location, your business now has another way to be discovered.

When someone looks for a place, the results that appear in their Nearby list are based on things like their friends' recommendations, ratings, check-ins, and likes. If you're a business with a physical location, here's what you can do to ensure your place is more easily discoverable in Nearby:

Update your Page to include all of your basic information, including your address, store hours, phone number, and details about your business in the About section

Update your category to make sure you appear when people are looking for your specific type of business

Every month people from around the world engage with their favorite brands on Facebook. Today we're excited to announce Global Pages, a new structure that provides the best, localized experiences for a brand’s customers, available to all brands working with Facebook.

With this new structure, Facebook users will be directed to the best version of a Page based on the country those users are in, enabling them to see localized cover photos, profile photos, Page apps, milestones, "about" information, and news feed stories from Pages—all while remaining part of the global brand community.

Each brand's Global Pages structure will include local Pages for specific markets (single- or multi-country regions) and a default Page for all other markets. More details on this new framework:

One global brand identity. Users from all countries will see the same Page name (translated into their local language), fan count, and People Talking About This (PTAT).

One URL. Brands can promote a single URL in all off-Facebook campaigns, and users will be automatically directed to the best version of the Page for them.

Global insights. Admins of the main Page will see insights for all global users in one easy-to-view dashboard.

Effective for brands that currently have one Page or many country-specific Pages

This structure works for brands that historically have managed one single Page with geo-targeted page posts, as well as for brands that have managed multiple, country-specific Pages. For example, the Doveteam from Unilever transitioned from operating one single Page using the geo-targeting feature to creating new, localized Pages that maximize their global scale while still providing local relevance.

At the same time, clients using a multi-page strategy have been able to easily transition their existing Pages to the new Global Pages framework. The global Walt Disney Studios team working on Frankenweenie easily associated their country-specific Pages for France, Ireland, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States into the Global Pages framework. The Holiday Inn team and the Kit Kat team from Nestle had equal success migrating their localized Pages from regions all over the world to the new model.

Better global benchmarking information will be available in the coming months

In addition to providing better localized experiences for your customers, we want to make it easier for you to measure your audience in each country as well as benchmark your brand against other brands you care about. Later this year we will include the country-level fan counts for all Pages (both those using the Global Pages framework as well as Pages that haven't transitioned to the new framework) publicly in our API. This will enable your internal teams to track how each market is performing, as well as to compare your fan base on a country-by-country level with other Pages on Facebook by accessing the data available via our API.

We're excited to announce the launch of the mobile app install ad, a new ad unit that will help advertisers drive and measure installs for their native mobile apps and games. When clicked, mobile app install ads lead directly to the desired app in the iOS iTunes app store or Google Play store. Mobile app install ads appear in mobile news feed, the most engaging place on Facebook. You can read more about the announcement on the Facebook Developer site.

Mobile app install ads enable advertisers to measure their installs on a cost per install basis (CPI). Beyond this, advertisers will be able to reach the exact audience they would like using all of Facebook’s rich targeting options including age, gender, likes and interests. This will allow more control over the audience advertisers can reach compared to other mobile advertising platforms. Mobile app install ad units are relevant for any advertiser or developer who is currently driving app installs from Facebook today.

In early results, beta partners like Kabam, Fab, TinyCo and Big Fish were able to reach a more relevant audience and efficiently drive installs. For example, TinyCo saw 50 percent higher CTRs and significantly higher conversion rates compared to their current mobile channels, as well as a significant increase in player engagement.

A select subset of Preferred Marketing Developers (PMDs) has been testing mobile app install ads and saw similarly positive results. For example, Nanigans clients efficiently achieved 8-10x the reach compared to other mobile ad buys. Ad Parlor saw consistent CTR’s from news feed of 1-2 percent from engaged users looking for iPhone and Android games that their friends were playing.

Advertisers should connect with their client partner or account manager to get started. Here is an outline of the process:

When people click on these ads, they will be sent to the App Store or Google Play to download the app, depending on the device. To measure the effectiveness of your ads, you must integrate with the latest Facebook SDKs for iOS or Android. Updating your app with the latest SDK will allow you to measure overall clicks and installs for your campaign, and it will allow you to optimize your ad delivery for installs.

In coming months, we’ll continue to make updates that improve the user experience and the performance of mobile app install ads. For example, you may be able to customize your ad unit based on your audience, ensure that your ads are only shown to people who have not installed your app on iOS or Android devices, and allow people to start installing your app without leaving Facebook.

To engage consumers with the Heineken brand and its sponsorship of the UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour, Amsterdam-based agency Lost Boys international created a dynamic mobile game for football fans around the world: the Heineken Trophy Hunt. The agency partnered with Dutch mobile tech startup Repudo, whose technology lets users drop off and pick up individual virtual “objects” – trophies in this case – from real world locations with their iPhones. By integrating Facebook, Repudo and Apple’s iOS, the team built an innovative mobile campaign that inspired people to hunt down trophies across the globe. LBi’s Strategy / Account Director, Emmelien Kneppers, sat down to tell us more.

What insight sparked the idea for the Heineken Trophy Hunt?

In today’s digital world, more and more content is available and accessible every day. With the press of a button, we can instantly share content with the world. As a result, it’s getting much more difficult to offer something new, unique and individualized. By creating scarcity with Repudo, we were able to tap into a wealth of new marketing opportunities. Imagine a virtual treasure hidden somewhere in your city; but there's only one, so you have to be the first to arrive to get it. Repudo’s technology bridges the real and virtual worlds in a fun and simple way.

How exactly did the campaign work?

Heineken gave its fans the opportunity to be part of the UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour by joining the competition, which was centered on the brand’s international Facebook page. Fans played the game by picking up virtual trophies from real world locations using Repudo’s technology on their iPhones. These fans really had to get involved and hit the streets to take part in the campaign. Repudo adds another dimension to communication; leaving and picking up a message from an actual physical location involves real effort from both sides. We “dropped” trophies all around the world. Each trophy was unique, so once a fan picked one up, it was gone and no one else could get it. Fans then had to leave two more trophies for two additional friends, who they invited through Facebook. This built sharing into the game, as you could only participate if your friends also picked up their trophies. Once they did, you were entered to win a chance to travel to Switzerland and Malaysia on the UEFA Champions League Trophy Tour, presented by Heineken.

Repudo’s technology was key to the campaign. Were they closely involved as partners as well?

We believe in bringing teams and expertise together to achieve the best results. Repudo pitched this technology to us, and together we came up with the concept of the Trophy Hunt. Innovation is very important to Heineken. This was the first time anyone had used this technology in a campaign like this. The close collaboration between agency, client and technology partner was absolutely key to the campaign’s success.

How was Facebook integrated into the campaign?

Fans had to sign up for the Trophy Hunt with an iPhone app using Facebook. This enabled people to invite friends and share content quickly and easily. With Facebook on mobile, the mobile and social worlds are totally integrated. Plus, Facebook develops more than just web-based services – Facebook campaigns can also work very successfully on other platforms.

How do you think about building mobile brand experiences for clients, and how do you see this area evolving?

Given the explosive growth of smart phone penetration – now up to 40% in developed countries – consumers are always “on.” As a result, the mobile-based business opportunities have grown exponentially. We are seeing a natural evolution where the boundaries between online and offline are disappearing.

We’re convinced that mobile has a very specific set of characteristics whose relevance and importance will only grow. The fact that you can access every type of content has a huge impact on any kind of business, from retail to entertainment, whether it is B2C or B2B. Brands need to think about which role mobile plays when adding mobile social services to the mix. The mobile market evolves very rapidly— the best way to learn is to get started.

No one likes flight delays. But when storms struck the northeast this summer, the social team at JetBlue took it as an opportunity to engage their fans and raise awareness about the effects of weather on operations. The result was an outpouring of support from customers, and one of their most engaging Page posts of the year. We spoke with JetBlue communications senior analyst Allison Steinberg to learn more.

Those clouds look pretty ominous.

This summer, the thunderstorms affecting operations were top of mind for everyone, including those travelling with us. Rob Vecchio, one of our ground operations crew members, snapped a great shot of the storm clouds coming in. We thought, what better way to show our customers why their plane might be delayed. How could a plane take off with severe weather coming? The picture really is worth a thousand words.

How did the photo make it from a ground operations crew member and onto the JetBlue Facebook Page so quickly?

We have a communications inbox where our crewmembers can send photos and observations from the frontline to be shared more broadly, whether it’s informing customers of operational updates, a fun story about something that just happened, or something we share internally.

This photo was submitted very early in the morning, and I knew when I saw it that it would resonate. We’re strategic with our social media calendar and have a plan for engaging our fans, but we’re also always open to things that may come up that are of the moment. There is a small group of us that work very closely on our Facebook channel. We had a brief meeting on how to share this photo that morning and then were able to turn it around quickly.

It’s really cool that team members outside of marketing know and feel empowered to send photos and stories to the social team.

We have a strong relationship with all of our crew. The communication channels are very much open and transparent. I think it is a product of our company culture, that kind of two-way dialogue that we have across departments and functions. Part of it is also is that we make sure our internal teams know about our social channels, and know that they have a way of actively contributing content by submitting to the inbox.

The ability for us to listen to our customers online and get that information back to our crew also helps set up our operations teams for success. So it definitely works both ways: We establish a chain by giving them information and then they are able to reach back out and say hey, here’s something I saw on the frontline that would be great to share.

Listening to our customers and what’s going on in the world in general is also key to what we do. The other thing that was interesting about this post is that during this period of the storm, especially in New York where the storm was centered, we saw a spike of people posting really captivating pictures of the storm clouds. So not only did this post give us an opportunity to show what it meant to our operations, it also gave us an opportunity to enter the conversation that was going on in the world as it was happening.

In this new series, we’re reaching out to the copy editors, community managers and creatives behind some of the best page publishing to come across our news feed. Know any brands or agencies you want featured? Post your ideas in the comments or drop us a line.

In an election year marked by roller coaster primaries and strong political discourse, how can people move beyond the rhetoric and focus on the issues that matter to them?

During a 24-hour hackathon held on January 19, a group of creatives, developers, product managers and engineers from R/GA, Facebook and Thomson Reuters teamed up to tackle this challenge. The result is a socially-driven, lightweight application that measures which political issues matter most to people during this election year. The non-partisan “What Matters Most 2012” polls and app can be found at the Facebook Page http://www.facebook.com/2012matters. It combines Facebook, mobile and digital out-of-home media.

The hackathon demonstrated the idea of “moving fast” when it comes to creativity and technology. Agencies are increasingly using technology and multiple platforms to create unique and useful experiences for consumers, and the day (and night) was a great illustration of this.

Answer what matters most to you hereand share the polls with your friends.

It seems like it’s hard to go wrong with anything Justin Bieber-related, but The Branding Farm really took it to the next level with the “Never Say Never” DVD release campaign. NSN Weekend was all about getting psyched to watch the DVD together with your friends. The campaign saw more than 36,000 RSVPs to the global event, over 7,000 individual viewing parties created through Facebook Events, 22,000 shares and 242 million social impressions. To top it off, the campaign achieved a 10 percent conversion rate on clicks to buy. Hill Salomon, The Branding Farm’s founder and Creative Director, talks about how they made Bieber even bigger.

It started with the recognition that the most important thing for us to deliver was a real world experience. We came to that realization by listening; we looked at the Bieber Facebook page and what was going on there, and across other social media following the buzz surrounding the release of the film. We wanted to find something that the fans were passionate about, and that we could make more engaging and valuable for them than standard DVD promotion. What we found was that fans were excited about getting together and having viewing parties. So we focused on creating a highly social, real-world event centered on the connections they share with their friends, and the fun that they’re going to have when they watch the DVD together.

How did this address your client’s business challenge?

Selling physical DVDs to digitally-oriented tweens isn’t the easiest task. We felt like we could best address the challenge by focusing on the real world event and amplifying the experience of watching the film with friends.

The idea of NSN Weekend is all about socializing and sharing the Bieber experience with your friends. How did you encourage this with your campaign?

Once we knew we were going to focus the campaign on viewing parties, the next question was how. We knew that planning the viewing party and related activities were going to play a big part in the event. We saw fans talking about what they were going to eat, what they were going to wear and what games they were going to play. So we came up with ideas for cool activities that fans could do together to plan for the event itself, like making purple “Bieber-berry” cupcakes before the party. We offered a new piece of content each day for seven days leading up to the release, which resulted in return visits and increased awareness.

Why did you decide to make Facebook the hub of the campaign?

For one, Facebook offers access to a huge portion of Justin Bieber’s audience. But what we particularly liked in this case was the ability to create events. When we honed in on the idea of NSN Weekend, we wanted to create something that had wide reach and accessibility. We created a Facebook event as a base for the NSN weekend concept and enabled people to RSVP with one-click. It also meant we could have a nice bridge between Justin’s existing presence on Facebook, where at the time he had about 24 million fans, and the NSN Weekend microsite. A landing tab on Justin’s Facebook page linked to the microsite. We used the events API to manage RSVPs to the global viewing event and also allowed users to create their own personal event and invite friends via Facebook. Through the platform, we were able to create a nice interplay between Justin’s page and the NSN weekend event.

With such a large fan base, how do you reach as many of them as possible?

It was of real strategic importance that we offer multiple ways for fans to engage with the campaign. We attempt to do that with all of our campaigns; we never assume it’s a one-size-fits-all for every fan. More dedicated fans may want to host their own viewing parties while others might just RSVP to the global viewing party and then sign-up for reminders of when the DVD drops.

How did you measure NSN Weekend’s success?

Obviously DVD sales were the primary goal and the CTR on the purchase button was the highest we’ve ever seen; that was a clear indicator of success. While that’s an extremely important figure and we’re really excited about it, we also try to look at a wide range of data to provide a comprehensive overview of what happened over the course of the campaign. Not only how many people RSVP’d and created their own viewing parties, but also how many people shared the content and then the way that content travelled. We use a combination of analytical tools, including Facebook Insights, to help capture and represent the ultimate visibility of the campaign as it spread through friends. We try to look at it as a four-step process: connections, activity, social impressions and then re-integration or response. Something like click to buy is one metric within one of those categories.

Why did this particular campaign strike such a chord with the Justin Bieber fan community?

We recognized what the fans were looking for and provided something of tangible value in response. This was important to Justin Bieber and his team, too, so that became one of the central strategic imperatives. Overall, we tried to make the campaign meaningful. While it might sound a bit lofty to say, the reason that 800 million people are on Facebook everyday is because it adds meaning to their lives. A meaningful experience might come in the form of entertainment, or utility but if it can be authentic and provide some kind of valuable engagement, that’s where we like to start.

From 9:30-11am PST (12:30pm EST, 5:30pm GMT), we will be streaming live from CES in Las Vegas. Please RSVP and post any questions you'd like answered during the Q&A section of our Creatives Talk below.

9:30-10:30am PST: Brand Keynote Panel with Facebook's Carolyn Everson

Tune in to watch a recorded version of Wednesday evening's Brand Keynote Panel with Carolyn Everson, Facebook's Vice President of Global Marketing Solutions. She will be joined by AT&T's David Christopher, General Electric's (GE) Beth Comstock, Walmart's Stephen Quinn, Hyundai's Steve Shannon and Unilever's Keith Weed. For more information, click here.

Tune in to hear Avi Savar, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Big Fuel, a pure-play social media agency serving large brands, discuss trends from CES 2012. Avi will be sharing his thoughts on how these new technologies will impact marketers and the ingredients of the most successful social campaigns.

Jen is head of agency marketing at Facebook where she is responsible for programs to inspire and educate agencies globally. In just over a year, her team has launched new programs for agencies including Facebook Studio, Facebook Studio Live, and various industry partnerships, including the CLIO special recognition award for Facebook Integrated Media. We caught up with her for the latest on the first-everFacebook Studio Awards.

What was the inspiration behind launching the Facebook Studio Awards?

Agencies are doing amazing work on Facebook. We created Facebook Studio to help showcase all of that great work from around the world. We know the creative community appreciates being recognized for their innovative work, so it seemed like a natural way to recognize great creativity built on the Facebook platform.

Agencies are raising the bar for the entire industry, and we're dedicated to recognizing the people that are behind it. If you have campaigns you didn’t get in before the end of the year, we just extended the deadline to January 15 to give everyone a little extra time to submit their best campaigns from 2011.

The jury was also just announced. How were they selected?

We knew we wanted a cross section of creative leaders from across the industry. This is truly a global award—agencies from more than 40 countries have work published on Facebook Studio—and we wanted to make sure that the jury reflected that as well. We’re thrilled to have an amazing group on board including Jeff Benjamin from CP+B, Susan Credle of Leo Burnett, Steven Goldblatt of EVB, Nick Law of R/GA, David Sable of Y&R and Mark D’Arcy, Facebook’s director of global creative solutions.

What about the awards criteria, how were they determined?

We started by looking at the campaigns that we know have been really successful and thought about what makes them different. For example, we know that the best campaigns are based on a social insight—the reason to share the campaign is built into the campaign from the beginning. The criteria are also the same points we think about when working with clients and agencies, and for vetting our own ideas. They’re really the guiding principles for everything we do, and represent the fundamentals for what we believe leads to successful campaigns on Facebook.

Any quick tips from the jury room?

Definitely think about the assets you're giving us. The more you can tell us, and the more descriptive you can be, the better. Video is one of the easiest ways to communicate a lot quickly, so we strongly recommend including a video that describes the work you did on Facebook. If video isn’t an option, images that really show the experience will help tell the story as well. Also think about the criteria as you write your campaign descriptions. Make sure to tell us about the social insight behind your campaign, and how the campaign delivered on the client objective.

Jennifer Kattula is Head of Global Agency Marketing at Facebook. There is still time to submit your campaigns for awards consideration— all campaigns submitted through January 15 will be in the running.

As the New Year approaches, it’s a perfect time to reflect on everything you’ve accomplished for your agency and your clients in 2011. Don’t miss these two opportunities to get recognized for your best work with Facebook.

We created the Facebook Studio Award to recognize the agencies that are behind some of the best campaigns on Facebook. You’ll find all the information you need here, and can submit your work by clicking the “Submit Your Work” button on the top right-hand of Facebook Studio. All work published to Facebook Studio is automatically in the running. Enter by December 31, 2011 to claim your place among the industry's best.

Entries combine Facebook with one or more traditional mediums such as film, print, and out of home in a new and innovative way. Visit the CLIO website for full details including entry guidelines and the 2011 winners.